Washington State Leads the Way in Home- and Community-Based Long-Term Care
Monday, March 29

$1.1 billion was included in the Health Care Reform bill to encourage other states to follow our lead – pay home care workers to let seniors and people with disabilities stay in their homes and communities.
Our state has a model home- and community-based care long-term care policy and our 38,000 home care workers can serve as a model for home care workers elsewhere.
Senator Maria Cantwell, who pushed to have this money included in the bill told the [Vancouver] Columbian, “We did this in the Legislature to allow the state to be more flexible. We were trying as a state to say, ‘How do we fix some of our long-term health care costs?”
Now, thanks to the Health Care Reform bill passed last week, other states will have the opportunity to follow our lead.